Tuesday, 14 April 2015

The idea to make a door knocker just came into my brain one day. I thought it'd just be cool to have one on my bedroom door, maybe this would kid me into thinking I had my own apartment or something. Hahaha, like that's ever gona happen....

I really don't know where the idea had come from but it was after I'd thought about it that I remembered those funny ones from Labyrinth. I'd seen that film a million times in primary school and it must have subconsciously helped shape my idea of what a door knocker should look like.

I started sculpying with my Sculpey until a sort of face happened. I left gaps in the lower lips for the knocker to sit in. I'd stuffed the back of the head with a wad of kitchen foil in order to save using all my precious Sculpey, because I'm very poor and buying Sculpey hurts me a bit.

Why I'd want anything this creepy in my bedroom is anyones guess

Due to over-enthusiasm and a lack of planning he has ended up looking like a close relation to Dobby the House Elf. But no matter, some leaves'll probably help!

Yeah, that's a bit better. I had both very thin parts in the leaves and very thick parts in the face so I kept a very close eye on him while he was cooking and took him out when I was starting to worry about the ends of the leaves.

I gave the whole thing a few coats of black acrylic paint, using a brush to get into every crevice and a sponge to even out the coating and add a bit of texture.

I'd imagined him to be bronze but I only had gold or silver paint. C'est la vie. But I think that actually the fates knew better because the gold turned out looking pretty good. I used only a very small amount of gold paint at a time, sponging it on evenly until I thought I had a good balance between dark in the nooks and metallic on the surfaces.

I'll definitely have a crack at doing another one or two because he really hadn't taken me very long, just two afternoons in fact! And it'd be cool if I could figure out how to make it a functioning knocker rather than just ornamental.